Disjoint
by Girl Who Writes
Summary: The day Shannon arrives in Sydney, with Bryan, she wants to get lost in the city.


**Title:** Disjoint  
**Author:** Girl Who Writes  
**Feedback:** is beloved.  
**Pairing:** Shannon/OMC  
**Word Count:** 649  
**Rating:** PG  
**Genre:** Angst  
**Summary:** The day Shannon arrives in Sydney, with Bryan, she wants to get lost in the city.  
**Notes:** I have no idea where this came from; I just wanted to use Sydney because gosh, I love it. Character study or brain waffle, you choose!  
**Spoilers:** Season 1.  
**Disclaimer:** Property of J.J Abrams and ABC. I just mess around with the characters for my own sick amusement.

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_Disjoint \Disjoint"\, v. i.  
To fall in pieces. --Shak.  
1913 Webster_

**I.**

The day Shannon arrives in Sydney, with Bryan, she wants to get lost in the city. She wants to hand Bryan her bags and walk away from him and stand in the middle of the city and look around.

They get into a cab and drive away; their bags stacked in the boot, her new boots pinching her feet and the beginning of a headache making its way to the front of her head. She rifles through her purse for aspirin but Bryan shoots her a look of annoyance as she piles her purse, her lip gloss, a package of tissues, eyeliner, a jewelry pouch and her inhaler onto the seat in between them, trying to find the aspirin.

She feels flustered and stuffs everything hurriedly back in, and looks out the window trying to will the headache to go away. When they arrive at the house, her expression is that of the beautiful, blank Shannon Rutherford that Bryan met in a classy bar. She slides from the cab, and later, a pair of crystal earrings are missing, and Shannon cries by herself because they were her mother's and she forgot them in a cab.

**II. **

Bryan spends time with her for the first week; glamorous restaurants and boutiques. Her week is a merry go round of expensive things – Monday, he buys her a pearl and diamond necklace; Tuesday he helps her carry a dozen shopping bags back to his car. Wednesday and Thursday, they spend the day on the beach, sipping cocktails and talking. Friday, there are half a dozen pairs of designer shoes.

She's not alone in the city until Monday again, feeling decorated like a Christmas tree. She sits in the park, in front of the fountain and reads 'Lolita' and listens to Puccini, ducking her face when the tourists snap photographs of the elegant blonde Australian girl in grey silk, so literary!

She wants to hand them her jewelry, earrings, necklace, bracelet and take off her shoes and walk home barefoot because she's not Australian, she's not literary and she's not even a natural blonde. That last thought makes her more depressed than any other which is a relief, because she's still the same girl who left L.A. with an icy smile on her lips and a pair of crystal earrings in her bag.

She leaves 'Lolita' on the park bench and walks away fast, before someone can see she's left it behind and return it to her.

**III. **

She's going to take the train home; something she's been dying to do since she found out Sydney had trains. It takes her five minutes to work out how to use the ticket machine, and another minute to count out the right change.

Before she gets on, she marches into the newsagent and buys an international phone card, and calls France.

The phone rings out, and she hasn't the faintest idea why she's calling her ex-husband who, the last time she saw him, she called a something-something bastard, and the something-something was something incredibly crude, because he threw an antique vase at her and called her a something-something bitch, whore, something. She went out and got drunk in French nightclubs after that night; maybe that's why the worst of it is filled in with the world 'something', in neat black lettering on her mind.

She hangs up and dials Boone's number, but she hangs up at the last minute. She's not ready for his help yet.

Her cell phone rings, Bryan, asking her where she is. "Saint James Station," she replies, looking at the grimy sign.

He tells her to meet him in front of the fountain; he's two minutes away.

Shannon folds her train ticket into her purse and leaves the train station. She throws the phone card away.

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End file.
